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The Dangerous Mr. Khan

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Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#101

Post by colkassad »

salmankhan wrote: post #69

Hi Everyone, This is Sal here. I wanted to respond directly on the author's page, but they seem to be having a problem taking comments. The reason why I make history videos is that many people I know (many of whom are quite educated) don't even have a basic scaffold of world events in their minds (or the potential causality between events). Most American high school and college students would find it difficult to giv…

Hi Sal,

I'm amazed at the breadth of subjects that you cover in your videos. Do you have to undertake a lot of research before covering a subject, particularly in math and science? Thanks for helping me get through Linear Algebra.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#102

Post by DrCatbox »

salmankhan wrote: post #96
DrCatbox wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you Sal for great videos! You are inspiring me to study maths. I have a Ba in history and agree with the criticism raised in the article, however I also think it is a problem that many people dont even have a basic scaffold of world events. History is about making choices, what to say and what not to say, and the way to say it, it is not merely about being familiar with major world events. What is a major world…

I try to do both. The way my brain works, I need to see where something fits into the bigger picture (both in time and space) before I can engage in the nuance. The beauty of this form-factor is that we can keep adding more videos to add more color and context since we aren't limited by the time of the classroom or state-mandated curricula.

I'd love to help you out but my voice is squely :)

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#103

Post by tptacek »

hnhg wrote: post #9
maukdaddy wrote: post #7

The comments thus far show exactly what is wrong with HN. HN has become an echo chamber where we all love certain people/companies/ideas and immediately dismiss any counter viewpoint. Instead of immediately discrediting the linked article because they're "haters" or "threatened", try reading it and understanding their point of view. I love Khan's work and what he's doing, but at the same time the article raises some…

I welcome opposing opinions but this itself doesn't present both sides of the argument, nor any context to the one example given, and sounds to me purely like a bashing exercise.

It is not the obligation of every article and every essay and every editorial to carefully present both sides of every argument. Sometimes, it's sufficient to carefully present your side of a new argument, just to stimulate discussion.

I disagree with Josh that this thread demonstrates HN groupthink (I actually found the comments to be pretty well balanced). But your comment demonstrates a fallacy that is very prevalent on HN, which is that every bit of source material has to be judged in HN's context, and anything that isn't suitably lawyered up and deferential is automatically faulty. The world is a pretty boring place when it provides nothing to stimulate your thoughts and, yes, disagree vehemently with.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#104

Post by astine »

ThomPete wrote: post #39
chaostheory wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The things we learn from history that are important become part of our culture, not our curriculum. How does it become part of our culture if it's not part of our curriculum? Given my own personal tastes (when I was a child), I would have skipped everything in history except for WWI, and WWII. Even with WWI and WWII, I probably would have only focused on the battles and not the social issues if given the chance. I…

And many people don't learn about those things because they are brought up in difference cultures. But to claim that some history books are better than others is just wrong. (I know you are not claiming that) You will naturally learn your countries history albeit not to the point where you can become a history professor but it's not the end of the world. History is perspective it can't be anything but perspective. Th…

But to claim that some history books are better than others is just wrong.

How can you even write that? That statement is just so ridiculous as to befuddle belief. There are history books in existence written with deliberate lies mean to indoctrinate people in certain ways. Are you saying that these books are no different from other books that have no lies inserted? Are you saying that books that don't incorporate newly discovered evidence about the past aren't more complete than books which don't?

Yes, it's true that we have to account for the unreliable narrator, but to then say that we must abandon all attempt at objectivity with regard to history is absurd! There is so much one can do to mitigate the problems of an unreliable narrator and when we can't mitigate it entirely (most of the time,) we can always express our margin of error. True, there will always be some degree of uncertainty but the purpose of studying history is to decrease that degree of uncertainty.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#105

Post by natural219 »

DrCatbox wrote: post #75
ThomPete wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it and normally consider myself pretty open minded. But then you read things like this. "Here Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence. " And in my mind the author is exposed. I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't pres…

Even if history is presented as a perspective, why choose Khans perspective? Why not choose another perspective? You missed the bigger picture of the article, which is that a single entity never should control re-telling of events. There should not be one perspective. One person, one entity, can not provide different perspectives, due to echo chamber effects and such, it is almost impossible.

Should we teach different things to different children, then, in order to promote educational diversity?

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#106

Post by andos »

ThomPete wrote: post #64
chaostheory wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will naturally learn your countries history albeit not to the point where you can become a history professor How? Through video game blockbusters like Call of Duty or summer movie hits like Saving Private Ryan?

How is Saving Private Ryan different from the US schools interpretation of 2nd World War? How is Call of Duty different than a soldiers account of how a battlefield looked like? They are after all consulting soldiers. I am not talking about learning historical facts but about growing up in a culture that has a memory of a past. Things that naturally flows between people. I knew of 2nd world war before I had history,…

How is Call of Duty different than a soldiers account of how a battlefield looked like?

Between a WWII veteran's personal account of the battles and playing CoD, which one would you pick? If you pick the veteran's account, you know that Call of Duty trivializes war. There is a difference.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#107

Post by hugh3 »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #52
jcarreiro wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't present history as fact How else could it possibly be presented? Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say that history is "a perspective"? Can one change history simply by deciding to view it differently, somehow?

History is not comprised of a set of value-neutral facts. History is a narrative constructed out of fact and interpretations, and every history has a viewpoint. Without question, one changes history by deciding to view it differently. If it didn't work that way, we'd only need one history book and we'd be done.

Well actually, history does consist of value-neutral facts, but the sum total of all those facts is far too complicated for any one mind to comprehend. This atom moved there, that atom moved here, and so forth. Even if you scale up to the actions of individual people rather than atoms, we're still far beyond what we could comprehend... and in any case, most of it isn't recorded.

Having acknowledged the limitations of the historian's knowledge, though, the question is what do you do next? A good historian will use the fact that he can't divorce himself from his own viewpoint as a reminder to be extremely cautious. A bad one will use it as an excuse to indulge his particular biases.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#108

Post by seaco »

salmankhan wrote: post #69

Hi Everyone, This is Sal here. I wanted to respond directly on the author's page, but they seem to be having a problem taking comments. The reason why I make history videos is that many people I know (many of whom are quite educated) don't even have a basic scaffold of world events in their minds (or the potential causality between events). Most American high school and college students would find it difficult to giv…

He seems to think you're on the verge of becoming the only educator on the planet, which is nonsense. He also doesn't discern between what you teach, and how you teach. YouTube accounts are free; He can get one.

Thanks for doing what you do. I think you're exploring what will become a incredibly valuable piece of the puzzle, especially for those without the advantages of a western public school system.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#109

Post by saraid216 »

natural219 wrote: post #105
DrCatbox wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if history is presented as a perspective, why choose Khans perspective? Why not choose another perspective? You missed the bigger picture of the article, which is that a single entity never should control re-telling of events. There should not be one perspective. One person, one entity, can not provide different perspectives, due to echo chamber effects and such, it is almost impossible.

Should we teach different things to different children, then, in order to promote educational diversity?

That smells like a rhetorical question. But my answer would be yes.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#110

Post by boredguy8 »

mquander wrote: post #43

The way the author writes, it's as if he thinks there is some superior alternative that Khan is displacing. Last I checked, there ain't. Fact is, Khan's videos are considered good because the actual history education that most students take away from classrooms is even worse. Like most other subjects, that's what you get when you try to deliver a comprehensive, objective, detail-oriented education to students who (wi…

The problem is that you think someone who watches this video would then "know there was a Russian Revolution." No, they wouldn't--at least not in any strong sense of the term "know". All they would have is some phonetic sequence that they could repeat.

At that point, it's just a game of 'guess the password'. http://lesswrong.com/lw/iq/guessing_the_teachers_password/

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